Though the Brigham Young Academy Building has watched students come and go for more than 100 years, it’s been a while since books were carried through its halls. But thanks to the efforts of many volunteer citizens, that will soon change. On June 24 the project received final approval, and the mammoth renovation of Academy Square officially began. When construction ends in 2001, the historic Academy Building and a modern addition will comprise the new Provo City Library.
Dedicated Jan. 4, 1892, the Academy Building was the first structure built for Brigham Young Academy. Also called the Education Building, it remained the heart of lower campus for generations. Then in 1975 BYU closed lower campus and sold the block. Though the buildings were protected from demolition by a historical preservation easement, they deteriorated substantially over the next two decades, as a series of private owners struggled without success to find feasible uses for the aging structures.
When Provo City purchased the square in 1994, the National Trust for Historic Preservation had designated Academy Square as the most significant, unrestored set of buildings west of the Mississippi. In 1995 a group of private citizens under the banner of the Brigham Young Academy Foundation, together with the Utah Heritage Foundation and Provo City, launched what would become a six-year effort to plan, fund, and construct the new Provo City Library at Academy Square.